I will agree with you that the concept of competition can prompt an administration into actually do something to provide improved education. What I've seen as the cause of most problems in the schools urban, suburban ,or rural can be placed at the feet of administrators and school boards. It always seemed to manifest in a few distinct ways. First and foremost was misapplication/disregard of resources. Spending outrageous sums on facilities that have no benefit in the educational process or a disregard of the true educators to do their job to the best of their abilities. Wasting money on sports or technology that provides little benefit is the most obvious but disregard of the teachers is the most insidious.
School boards are prime victims for wasting money. They get all wide eyed at the prospect of spending money on some flashy new project that will make it look like they really care about providing for the students when it's all about how they look. Administrators that have no classroom instruction time who implement authoritarian policies that clearly tell the teachers they have no value or input on determining education policy. Those that couldn't live with it left, those that did resigned themselves to servitude.
Of course, there is the consistent problem of basic funding. It's bad enough that every dollar that is allocated for a student that is taken by a charter school is taken from the public school but the effect is greater than that. For every student taken from the public school the fixed operating costs don't decrease by any significant factor. That means the facility and its maintenance will degrade because of the lowered operating budget and further reducing its ability to perform its job, causing further dissatisfaction with its results.
I attended a fairy rural public school way back in the day. The budget was pretty lean due to the relative income and low property values but I got a pretty good education. Most of my teachers were top tier. They could experiment and find a hook that would get you interested in learning. The administrators worked their way up through classroom performance. They could tell a good teacher from not so good. They didn't toss a teacher that was lacking, they found a way to work with them, find a mentor that could help make them better.
When the whole concept of charter schools started, I thought it was a great idea. Give those educators that have new and interesting ideas try them in a limited environment to evaluate the ideas.
What's not to love?
Now what do we have? Hedge funds investing in charters, teachers hired at subsistence wages only expected to work for two years? I didn't know jack about my "profession" after two years! Total lack of financial transparency or accountability? Seriously? That doesn't sound like an innovative forward thinking approach to education, more like a scam.
Enough for now got to go grocery shopping.
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